1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus that carries out printing on a printing medium electrostatically adsorbed on a transport belt.
2. Related Art
JP-A-2004-149280 discloses an example of a printing apparatus provided with a transport belt and a print head that discharges a printing material such as ink toward a printing medium. In such a printing apparatus, when a transport belt is charged by a charging unit, the printing medium fed onto the transport belt is electrostatically adsorbed on the transport belt. When the printing medium is transported by the operation of the transport belt, printing material from the print head is attached to the printing surface that is the surface that does not come in contact with transport belt of both surfaces of the printing medium.
Incidentally, in order to increase the efficiency of the electrostatic adsorption of the printing medium by the transport belt, it is desirable to eliminate the electric charge from the printing surface of the printing medium. Here, a charge eliminating unit that eliminates the electric charge from the printing surface by coming in contact with the printing surface of the printing medium may be provided in such a printing apparatus.
However, in this case the charge eliminating unit gradually deteriorates because the charge eliminating unit is made to come in contact with the printing medium in order to eliminate the electric charge from the printing surface of the printing medium. When the deterioration of the charge eliminating unit proceeds in this way, the elimination efficiency of the electric charge from the printing medium by the charge eliminating unit is lowered.